Monday Oct 17, 2011

The morning JavaOne 2011 Community Keynote began with IBM, presented by Jason McGee, IBM
Distinguished Engineer, Chief Architect, Cloud Computing. McGee focused
on Java and Cloud computing-the challenges in the language and the JVM
for running in the Cloud, how to make your applications elastic and
scale well in the Cloud, and the latest innovations (driven by IBM and
others) for deploying applications to the Cloud.

McGee explored several recent IBM offerings for the Cloud-including
WebSphere eXtreme Scale, a Java based, in-memory data grid product for
elastic scalability in Cloud environments; and IBM Workload Deployer, a
Cloud deployment and management system for existing virtualized
hardware. McGee ended by reiterating IBM's commitment to the Java
community, noting their membership in OpenJDK as of 2010.

Community: Best Practices, Innovation, and Learning Resources

Sharat Chander, Principle Product Director, JavaOne Program
Committee Chairperson, Oracle began his portion of the keynote by
offering a moment of silence in respect for the passing of Apple's Steve
Jobs, noting his passion and innovation in the world of technology. The
Apple logo briefly appeared on the large screen.

Chander emphasized that Java isn't just about technology, it's also
about community. Within this context, he first recognized Mike
DeNicola, John Rose, and Patrick Curran, for their outstanding
participation and leadership within the JCP this past year. And as part
of ever-broadening the Java community, Chander next paid tribute to the
Java Dutchess program-with over 400 groups around the world, globally
connecting women in Java technology.

From there, Donald Smith, Director of Product Management, Java
Platform Group, Oracle invited onstage a panel of representatives from
the global Java community: Martijn Verburg, London Java Community; John
Duimovich, OpenJDK; Deepak Bhole, OpenJDK; Stephen Chin, SvJugFx; and
Bruno Souza, SouJava. The group noted that this was the first JavaOne
conference with a community-themed keynote. In true connected community
fashion, the group invited those watching the presentation to informally
vote (via text message) on Java technologies and initiatives of current
and future interest.

The panel members all urged active participation in Java User
Groups, from both a technical and professional advancement perspective.
Such community involvement not only drives open standards, they
declared, but also drives innovation among vendors. The OpenJDK
representatives then explored the challenges and promises of the
initiative, agreeing that participants should have high expectations for
openness, and to push on that. They strongly urged developers to
download OpenJDK, and to use it.

Community: Moving Java Forward

Smith explored with the panel how the Java community can best take
part in moving Java forward. The consensus was that the process ideally
involves vision, innovation, and execution, and that the community can
participate at all of these levels-getting involved via JUGs, as well as
testing and submitting bug reports, and thereby helping Oracle and
other Java vendors build the best and most innovative technologies. One
technique being explored at some JUGs, to better facilitate
participation, is to both stream them live and offer audio archives via
Parleys.com. Within the context of making community content as available
as possible, Oracle announced their agreement with Parleys.com to host
many of the JavaOne sessions on the learning site-including video,
demos, and synchronized audio/slides.

Duke's Choice Award Winners

What JavaOne would be complete without acknowledging the Duke's
Choice Award Winners (this year with community input in the selection
and review process). Featured onstage were representatives of Rockwell
Automation, for their Java Embedded factory floor automation solutions;
Sodbeans Project, for their NetBeans-based accessibility suite to aid
blind software developers; and JHome, a Glassfish/Java EE-based home
automation system for the control of almost any device in the home,
including lamps, gates, coffee machines, and more.Java Posse Comes to Town

To the tune of Spaghetti Western soundtrack music, representatives
of the fabled Java Posse next took the stage (to Sharat Chander's mock
amazement). The Java Posse site has long been known for its podcasts
offering news, discussions, interviews, and "general mayhem" surrounding
the world of Java. The Java Posse members emphasized what they see as
the three elements of Java-the language, the platform, and (most
importantly), the Java community. "We have a development community that
other development platforms dream of having," they said. They promised
in-depth appearances from many of the Duke's Choice Award winners. And
in parting the stage, they deputized Chander as an official honorary
member of the Java Posse, presenting him with a 10-gallon hat.

In closing, JavaOne participants were urged to get involved and
make their voices heard-to participate in the JavaOne Community Steering
Committee, to participate in the JavaOne Program Committee, to submit
speaker papers, to participate in the OpenJDK project, and to join a
local JUG. Chander parted by noting that JavaOne 2012 would feature a
community member as one of the keynote speakers.